Hours of Lead
by Susanne Barringer
Summary: Post-ep for Requiem. Summary withheld, but angsty.


TITLE: Hours of Lead  
AUTHOR: Susanne Barringer  
EMAIL: sbarringer@usa.net  
ARCHIVE: Sent to Gossamer directly. Anywhere else okay with these headers attached.  
CATEGORY: VA  
DISCLAIMER: Borrowed from CC, 1013, and Fox. No infringement intended.  
  
Post-Requiem. All other information withheld.   
  
THANKS to Sue, who reminds me everyday that the best friendships come from the least expected places. And she betas good, too. :)  
  
_________  
  
Hours of Lead  
by Susanne Barringer  
  
~~~~~~~~~~  
This is the Hour of Lead--  
Remembered, if outlived,  
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--  
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--  
- Emily Dickinson  
~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
In a weird sort of way, waiting becomes easier. At first, you're afraid to leave the house, afraid to take a shower, afraid to be away from the phone for even five seconds. You answer the phone before the first ring has even completed. You constantly check your cell phone to make sure it's charged. Your heart pounds in fear whenever you hear a familiar voice on the other end of the line, and even more when it's unfamiliar. You take the phone with you into the bathroom, just in case.  
  
In the second month, you're willing to venture away a little bit, even if just for a minute. You don't obsess so much about being within arm's distance of a phone anymore. You sometimes let the phone ring twice before answering. Still, when you're gone, you call to check your voice mail every fifteen minutes, just in case.  
  
By the third month, you sometimes don't take your cell phone with you when you go to the store to pick up milk. You no longer jump out of your skin every time the phone rings. You don't run to answer it anymore because you know it's probably another person trying to sell you aluminum siding. Occasionally, you don't think you can handle your mother or your boss or your friend calling to ask for the thousandth time how you are doing, so you don't answer the phone at all, even though you're sitting right next to it. You never turn off your answering machine, though, just in case.  
  
You are nearly four months into waiting and learning to live with it when the call comes, from the place you least expect.  
  
"We need someone to identify the body."  
  
And with that, the silent waiting comes to a screaming halt.  
  
*****  
  
She takes her mother with her to Oregon because she isn't yet sure if she needs to do it alone, or if she can't do it alone. She knows her mother will understand whatever last minute decision she makes.  
  
In the end, she needs to do it alone.   
  
There isn't a mark on him, not one. She pulls back the sheet and examines him closely, looking for punctures or scars from tests she chooses not to imagine. His body is clear, just like it was before he left.  
  
Only after she examines his body does she look at his face. She knew it was him when she walked into the room. The shape of him, along with the dead spot in her heart, confirmed what she already suspected.   
  
She looks up to his face and sees him now as his partner, as his lover, rather than as the doctor she had been just a few moments prior. He looks peaceful, she thinks--thinner along the cheekbones and jaw, but still himself.   
  
Her own calmness surprises her, the shock numbing her to any kind of reaction. She strokes his forehead, his cold lips, then kisses him. She is astonished when he doesn't kiss her back. She could not have prepared herself for that because it is unimaginable. The jolt finally allows her grief to push away the shock.  
  
*****  
  
At first, you don't notice that you're not waiting anymore. There are too many things to do. There are people you need to notify, although, perhaps, not as many as it seems there should be. There is a service to plan, probably simple and unpretentious, as he would have wanted. Perhaps you have to go through his belongings because there is no one else to do it.  
  
There are things to deal with at work, and maybe you even have a doctor's appointment or two which you had previously put off because of the waiting. There are also people who want to visit you and listen to you and bring you casseroles. They know you loved him, and that makes it difficult for you to talk to them the way they want. You notice how much they whisper to each other when they think you aren't looking. They are worried about you.  
  
You have family who want to take care of you, but all you want is to be left alone. You want to know what it is like not to wait anymore. You think maybe waiting was better. It will take some time until the emptiness of knowing hits you full force.  
  
*****  
  
At the grocery store, she tosses a bag of sunflower seeds into her cart. This is habit. At home, she has fourteen packages in the cupboard above her stove, one for each week he's been missing.  
  
She is already in the next aisle before she remembers she is not waiting anymore. By the time she reaches frozen food, she is in tears. It feels good to cry against the cool air.  
  
She doesn't need to be reminded there is something to live for. She feels it every day, shifting inside her womb. She has heard its heartbeat and seen it, a pattern of darkness and light on a monitor.  
  
Some days it doesn't seem enough, like the fourteen bags of sunflower seeds. Other days it is all that she needs.  
  
*****  
  
When everything is done, all the loose ends tied up, you finally understand that there is no more waiting. You realize you don't know how to live that way anymore. What do you do with yourself when a ringing phone no longer holds any hope? What do you do when you no longer wake before the nightmare ends?  
  
Knowing seems better than not knowing, but learning to give up waiting is the hardest of all. Life proceeds with definition now, with yes or no answers to all questions. You are not used to that. You need to wait for something. You feel like you just might be able to survive if you can count the days toward something instead of the days since.  
  
*****  
  
For the first time, she flips the calendar forward three months to look at the promised date. Until now, there has been no forward--only each single day, full of leaden hours, then a silent passing to the next.  
  
April 17th. She studies it carefully, how square and even it is on the page. The date falls near the middle but not quite, padded on all four sides with other days. It is a Tuesday. Monday's child is fair of face; Tuesday's child is full of grace.  
  
She circles the date with a thick blue marker and waits for grace.  
  
~~~~~  
  
END  
  
It's not my usual style, so I'd love to know if it worked.  
sbarringer@usa.net  
  
All my fanfic housed at http://www.geocities.com/s_barringer  
  
~~~~  
  
Here's the complete Emily Dickinson poem, just because I love it:  
  
After great pain, a formal feeling comes--  
The Nerves sit ceremonious--like Tombs--  
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,  
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?   
  
The Feet, mechanical, go round--  
Of ground, or Air, or Ought--  
A Wooden way  
Regardless grown,  
A Quartz contentment, like a stone--   
  
This is the Hour of Lead--  
Remembered, if outlived,  
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow--  
First--Chill--then Stupor--then the letting go--  
  



End file.
